I don’t like smartphones. I use a dumbphone.
But this is a wonderful initiative.
ass stock operating system, no macro lens, shit battery, still overpriced. you are better off with a refurbished pixel with a custom os.
im still not sure the whole business thing is a just a greenwashing scam or not.
on the other hand the battery can just be popped out, has a cool semitranspaerant early 00s design.
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why does a poor stock os matter if you will replace it anyway? did the same thing on day one
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Well even if the manufacturing of the phone is no greener, replaceable battery is still greener.
im still not sure the whole business thing is a just a greenwashing scam or not.
What does “greenwashing” actually mean to you? None of your criticisms are related to the environment.
Really wish Fairphone would come to the US. I’d spend the money on it, but they only half-ass sold the last gen phone here on the US.
I don’t even understand why. Most Qualcomm, Quectel, and other radios support worldwide 4G and 5G bands now. Even if they didn’t officially sell it here but had a variant that supported US bands you could import, I’d be happy.
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Unfortunately Telecomms in Australia seem to have a pissing contest on who can screw consumers more, America or Aussie companies.
I can send you one probably, but you know… tariffs (and processing fees).
I appreciate it, but I just got a new phone because I needed a new one recently. I wish it could have been something like a Fairphone, but thems the breaks.
I’m using this phone right now and I love it. it feels solid. Im using a degoogled ROM and it just works, there seems to be a lot of people pressing for graphene os specifically and discrediting the phone for what it is. its so easy to take apart and cheaply repair its great. it’s perfect for folk who want a decent smartphone that you dont have to worry about being thrown around. sure it’s not perfect but it is still a very great photo
What’s the cost to replace a cracked screen?
You buy the OLED display as a spare part for 100 EUR on the official website. https://shop.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?category=4&filters=31
Yeah, that plus labor is 80% of what I typically pay for a whole brand new phone… I know why it is this way, but it really is this way and that makes it very hard for low volume players to enter the market.
Smartphones of this price would be low quality, impossible to self epair, and very likely made with very poor social and environmental conditions. It’s the opposite of what Fairphone does, so the comparison is not possible.
The heck are you talking about? If you change it yourself it’s still 100€. And you won’t find any decent smartphone at this price.
I typically pay US$250 for unlocked smartphones, and they are fine for me, my wife, my kids, friends and family…
If the screen is 100€ and the labor to install it competently (I suppose this is a DIY serviceable phone, but the screen?) is another 75€, that’s 80% of what I would be paying for a brand new phone.
I have been shopping for a rom for my FP. Which are you running?
I use CalyxOS on mine. It has microG all working by default so if you need that sort of thing it’s probably the easiest way to get it up and running
calyx os is what I use
Went to buy one but they don’t sell to USA any more. THAT will tell off tRump.
Aaaand it’s impossible to buy in the US. Even if USians want to do the right thing, we’re not permitted.
Of course, not being a billionaire is illegal here.
Only 400€ to go until I can afford it.
That’s cool. Let me know when it gets support for GrapheneOS and finds it’s headphone jack again.
The answer is likley never, GOS devs dont trust Fairphone devs (due to poor security practices) and Fairphone devs are unwilling (in some cases unable) to meet the extremely high standards for GOS.
Big red flag:
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Graphene doesn’t. The way I see it is like buying a laptop with pre-installed Windows, and replacing the OS.
Doesn’t that basically equate to “yep, this is an android phone?”
GrapheneOS doesn’t have AI crap.
Yup. My current one is dying and I’m using it almost always wired to a charger or battery. I don’t care how badly they try to waste my battery, I’m not buying a new Android phone ever. If this one dies, I’m prepared to not use a phone until there’s a reasonably priced Linux phone.
Just replace the battery then. Most phone shops have the ability and tools to do it in about an hour to 3 hours.
I’m afraid. Lol phones with non replaceable batteries suck.
They are replaceable, it just takes some tools and work, both of which you can get at the phone repair shop.
What a non sequitur.
Please get through the FCC and open sales in the USA before Fairphone 6 is made.
I really don’t want to buy another unrepairable phone.
Do you know why it’s not in the US?
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Thanks for a great and in depth answer. I love Lemmy.
Idk, but if I had to guess, the answer is almost always money.
Or it’s not white enough
I’ve had this phone for over a year with Murena e/OS/! 90hz refresh rate is so nice
I really wish this was available in the US. I’ve found myself able to hang on to devices longer and longer. So this would be perfect. I’m only charging my battery to 80% and discharging it to 30% before charging it again just to prolong the life of the battery because that’s the first thing that dies on most devices. Having a user replaceable battery again would be an absolute godsend.
Are you using something to automate that? If so what? Does it require root?
Several Android manufacturers have their own settings in the OS for battery longevity (automatic schedule based smart charging, or charging limits)
Don’t think it’s native in Android. Charging limits need support in the charging controller chip, plus driver support in the OS.
So my device settings have the functionality built in to stop charging automatically when the battery hits a certain percentage. And so I have set it to stop charging automatically at 81%. I also use BatteryBot Pro from F-Droid to alert me when the battery rises above 80% or drops below 30%
Yeah, same here honestly. For real, I wish it was available in the US too
I’m interested in this one also. I like the look of it. Currently a long-time Pixel user, but I’m open to other options. It will take a truly good camera to pull me away, though.
That’s honestly one thing I’m really glad about. I’m legally blind, so pictures don’t honestly matter that much to me, and so I could really give a fuck less what the camera looks like as long as it functions well enough to act as a magnifier for me to read small print on things occasionally.
Like if I go pick up one of those frozen pizzas from the store and I need to read the box to know what temperature to set the oven to and how long to put it in. I use the camera to just zoom in on the print and read it and then leave the camera.
Sometimes last year Marquez Brownlee (I think it was him, I don’t think it was Dave2D) was conducting a blind test among his audience which Photos they thought looked best. Some top brands were jumping up and down from one test scenario to another but the Fairphone ended up in the midfield constantly. True, that’s not a glowing recommendation of the camera but at least an insurance that one doesn’t get utter trash either.
Do you happen to know whether this was before or after the camera update? The camera has been noticeably improved at some point.
Do you recall which ones scored the highest?
iirc, it’s typically the pixel a series, normal pixel series, the most expensive iPhone, and the Samsung flagship (or smth like that)
The Pixels tend to give really punchy contrast which a lot of people like
Not off the top of my head but I distinctly remember that the Pixel A phone scored higher than the flagship Pixel model.
I would need to look the video up but I’m also between appointments, so I can comment for a bit but not do research.
could habe been this one?
There’s other phones with user replaceable batteries. I looked it up a month or so ago. They’re not as ethical as fairphone, but still better than my drawer of working phones with dead batteries.
Phones like the Galaxy Active which have terrible hardware to make them entirely unappealing outside of that one crucial feature. They do this on purpose.
Murena does ship them to the USA, but with /e/OS preinstalled, which is great if you’re into privacy and degoogling. I don’t know how it works with US carriers though. Feel free to ask them on their forum, community.e.foundation
They ship fairphone 4 US, but not 5
/e/OS doesnt interest me because its far to iphone(esk) in design. Though i might be able to flash LineageOS instead. I also want nothing to do with Google Play Services or even Micro-G. I even think Micro-G is too much of a compromise and won’t use it. If an app won’t run because Google Play Services doesn’t exist, then I don’t run that app. If I don’t get notifications because Google Play Services doesn’t exist, then I don’t get notifications. So be it.
It’s pretty open hardware I’m sure it would be very easy to flash it to Fairphone’s OS
its far to iphone(esk) in design
It’s far too iPhone-esque in design
“It’s” has the apostrophe because it’s “it” + "is
“too” has two o’s when there’s an excess of something. More stuff = more o’s!
“esque” is uh…just how it’s spelt
iPhone capitalization is just their branding.
I only commented to help with “esque”, but saw other things I could help with. Knowledge is power!
This is a 50% DoD and is considered best possible practice to prevent lithium-ion dendrite formation.
Updoot for good advice.
Proof:
This is a 50% DoD and is considered best possible practice to prevent lithium-ion dendrite formation.
Not entirely true. “Best possible” would be left plugged in and charged to 50%. Next best would be 49-51%. Then 48-52% and so on.
Also it’s not that difficult or expensive to swap a battery and not really worth the stress, in my opinion.
Well, you are absolutely correct. A 1-2% DoD is something for like, the Voyager Probe though, not a smartphone :)
What kind of software creates this plot?
Looks like AccuBattery.
It’s AccuBattery
If you don’t mind clarifying, what do you mean by DoD?
Depth of Discharge, sorry – 0 to 100 would be a 100% depth (the entire battery), 30 to 80 is 50%.
What did you actually gain here? With my Pixel 7 it looks almost the same with 3.1% capacity loss per year without taking any special care of my battery. Is my phone an outlier or does it just not matter? And I almost exclusively charge with wireless.
I charge wired (high speed, 18-22W). Wireless is known to be a lot slower and theoretically gentler on the battery.
I also use the phone heavily, like a computer, I’m a “power user”, so my battery thrashing is higher than average.
Us having the same durability lost on our engine despite me driving double the miles is a good analogy.
To my knowledge wireless charging is harder on the battery because of the heat it produces.
The really nice thing is that the larger phone batteries get the more you get to use at 50% depth of discharge. My phone is 5,000 mAh and so I get to use 2,500 mAh of it. Once average phones start getting 5,500 mAh, that will mean I will be able to use 2,750 mAh. 250mAh may not sound like a lot, but it can go a decently long way.
Fairphone 6 approaching? They are great, the project is amazing and I wish every brand would be like them in terms of caring about users and environment
Anyone know what the bootloader unlock process is like for Fairphone? I know they support it, but does it take 7 days like OnePlus or constantly have issues like Motorola?
First thing I did on my Fairphone 4 was to flash iode OS on it.
I don’t know much about bootloaders and such, but I was done and happy within an hour after purchasing it.
Also, if I am not mistaken, I think warranty is still valid if you run custom ROMs.
Fairphone is very pro openness 😄
Wait the Fairphone has a locked bootloader? The mind wobbles.
Else anyone with physical access can install spyware without anyone noticing. Thats a bit of security which most people probably won’t notice but can be deactivated in a minute by any owner, so I don’t mind.
They have a howto on their support page
https://www.fairphone.com/en/bootloader-unlocking-code-for-fairphone/
And i just tested it, you get the unlock code immediately.
Oh, nice. That was my question. I wish it didn’t require a code at all, but at least you don’t have to wait a week like some other manufacturers. Thanks!
I don’t understand why this requires a code rather than a toggle in developer settings like a Pixel. That doesn’t SRM like openness and a commitment to treating users fairly since they could change their policy at any time.
I’ve read that it’s because fairphone has to pay a fee for each unlocked device, but it sounds a little weird so no idea if that’s real.
but, it can be worked around if you don’t want to get logged. the system just wants a 200 OK response from the server, I think through HTTP (not S), so you can set up an MITM proxy or custom DNS and web server to always give this response without using their website. that’s what I did too.
you can read more here: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/oem-unlock-input-verify-code/56231
edit: and also here: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/unlocking-bootloader-offline/95573
and the connection is actually HTTPS, but does not validate it against a globally trusted root certificate, so it can easily be served by a local server and a self signed cert
I wish importing phones were an option for my country, but no. Even if I secured a way to bring it here, it takes 1000 dollars just to register its IMEI to use here.
Şu an yurtdışından telefon getirtecek olsam IMEI değiştirir geçerdim. iPhone için mümkün olmayabilir. Bu hale getirenler utansın.
The hardware is good and I like the idea in principle but Fairphone’s support and software QA is dreadful and you need to hope you never need the former because of problems with the latter. My FP5 was bricked by an update they pushed out and after six weeks of trying to get a solution from their support (four weeks of which they didn’t respond at all) I ended up claiming on insurance and buying a Pixel. According to the forums this problem is far from unique to me.
If they just didn’t drop the headphone jack.
my phone has a headphone jack, my phone before that had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? Zero because I have decent bluetooth headphones
Boo this man!
…are they booing me, or are they booing headphones?
You. They’re booing you.
Help me, Smithers!
😔
Ok I use my wired headphones
I just have a dap that can receive bluetooth. More battery life, drives literally anything to very loud, 4.4mm out and can hold it’s own music library and play it without eating phones battery or memory.
Okay? You’re not the one asking for a headphone jack tho??? Pointless comment.
This is fine if you don’t care about having the best audio quality and lowest latency possible.
not just that. with a jack, you can use your phone as a perfect mic for your PC. its also better in terms of privacy as you don’t blast “IM HERE” signals that every other shop has a tracking device for logging them. I would guess majority of bluetooth audio devices don’t even support mac address randomization
I would guess majority of bluetooth audio devices don’t even support mac address randomization
Wouldn’t that be a nightmare for pairing? The device wakes and tries to connect to the last device it was paired to, only to find unknown vendors
mac randomization is a defined thing in the BLE standard (afaik bluetooth classic does not have it, but maybe that changed in BT 5.1?). It’s not truly random, it involves cryptography so that paired devices can recognize each other in the end
I feel like latency only matters if you’re realtime gaming. In any other situation the video just syncs to the audio.
As for quality AptX-HD is decent for low bitrates even at 24-bit, and LDAC remains excellent for anything higher.
Unless you’re listening to high-res FLAC (in which case, god help your earphone impedance when listening to normal songs), I doubt the loss is audible
My decent Bluetooth headphones have the option to plug in a headphone cable to use them wired. I use it occasionally so I can reduce audio latency, which can be useful with gaming…and essential with rhythm games.
my phone has a headphone jack, my phone before that had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? Zero because I have decent bluetooth headphones
That’s just like your opinion man
My last phone had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? All the time! And that was despite having decent Bluetooth headphones.
I loved wearing my cans when mowing the lawn because it cut down on the noise, and I also used them when laying in bed since they had much better audio. I would use my Bluetooth headphones the rest of the time because they were more convenient.
My new phone doesn’t have headphone jack, and I’m super bummed.
So now you still do the exact same things but with a little dongle, right?
USB-C to headphone jack dongles suck. You lose them easily, you can’t charge your phone if they’re connected and if you disconnect your headphones the device still behaves as if they’re plugged in. It’s so much less convenient and on the other hand there’s just no downside to having a dedicated headphone jack, so I still don’t get why they’re no longer including them.
As well as all your points (which I 100% agree with), my other issue with these dongles is simply that they stick out way more. If I buy a pair of headphones with an angled connector, I can plug them in and wrap the wire a little bit and then when the phone’s in my pocket, the wire takes up basically no space and doesn’t get smushed about by my leg.
With a dongle, I need an extra couple inches of vertical space, and because the wire/connectors are sticking directly out the phone, they get bent all over the place. Absolutely crap design. Yes 90 degree USB-C to headphone jacks exist but they take up way more space than just a headphone jack.
You lose them easily
Just leave them connected to the headphones.
you can’t charge your phone if they’re connected
Dongles with an additional usb port exist.
if you disconnect your headphones the device still behaves as if they’re plugged in.
Again, leave the dongle connected to the headphones, not the phone.
It’s so much less convenient
It is less convenient, but I’d argue not by all that much. More importantly it’s not any less convenient for the vast majority who are already only using Bluetooth.
there’s just no downside to having a dedicated headphone jack
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It’s an additional, and to most people superfluous, point for water ingress. Water damage is the most common type of damage in phones.
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It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
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It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few. This is especially important to Fairphone in particular because they don’t use off-the-shelf components and promise to supply replacement parts pretty much indefinitely. I.e. Fairphone would have to design a custom module and then have that module in stock and manufactured specifically for them for the lifetime of each of their devices. That’s not a trivial expense.
It’s an additional […] point for water ingress.
the whole back panel is a big point of water ingress when that is not glued shut hard
It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
I never needed the additional camera modules, and there were phones with single camera module that made very nice images. the jack is also often at the top of the device where the battery doesn’t reach, but in my phone there’s also enough place for it between the bottom and the battery for a jack connector. in a fairphone
It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few.
exact same opinion about multiple camera modules. nobody really needs them.
I can’t have them connected to my headphones all the time because I connect headphones to other devices that all have a fucking headphone jack.
- It’s an additional, and to most people superfluous, point for water ingress. Water damage is the most common type of damage in phones.
I’ve had watertight phones with a headphone jack over a decade ago.
- It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
Yes. Anything you add to a phone is a tradeoff. No shit. These points are what is usually used to justify the lack of a jack. But maybe, just maybe, they don’t save as much money as they make with selling wireless headphones and this is just an excuse? Especially the big companies like Apple or Samsung that sell their own peripherals? And this whole thing is just an excuse to sell overpriced gadgets that need to be replaced every few years because of their batteries? Maybe, just maybe, it’d be valid if consumers still had a choice and could pick phones with or without a jack and would have to pay for the luxury of using decent headphones with a few milliamperehours?
- It’s an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few. This is especially important to Fairphone in particular because they don’t use off-the-shelf components and promise to supply replacement parts pretty much indefinitely. I.e. Fairphone would have to design a custom module and then have that module in stock and manufactured specifically for them for the lifetime of each of their devices. That’s not a trivial expense.
Manufacturing a phone is not a trivial expense. Removing features is a business decision and a headphone jack costs money but doesn’t earn any whereas they can produce more cheaply without one. I get it. It’s just that doing so requires you to buy and use battery powered headphones that are much less sustainable than traditional magnets tied to a cable. How a company that lives off its promise to safe the world jumps on that wagon is a miracle to me. Companies that remove headphones don’t care about audio quality (which is why Sony still produces phones with audio jacks, I guess) or sustainability. Which is odd for a company like fp.
requires you to buy and use battery powered headphones
This is simply false though, we’d agreed that you are required to buy and use a dongle, and that this is an added inconvenience. But you are not required to switch to wireless headphones and your old cans haven’t suddenly become useless. People still have a choice between wired and wireless, wired has just become a little less convenient, that’s all. I completely agree with you that people shouldn’t go out buying new gadgets if their old stuff is still functional, but you can just continue using your old headphones if you get a new phone if you buy a dongle with it. Inconvenient yes, but not the end for wired headphones.
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Yup. If anything, they should add a second USB-C connector. Much more versatile and you can still charge your phone if one of them dies.
These flaky, but simultaneously bulky headphone connectors need to die. They’re inferior in pretty much every way imaginable.
Every day the bait gets lower and lower effort
I’m going to lose that dongle. You say further down that I can just leave them connected, but I use my headphones with more than my phone (laptop, desktop), and those other devices have a headphone jack. Leaving it plugged in to my phone sucks too, for obvious reasons.
I don’t care about water ingress. I’m happy to give up water resistance and have a slightly thicker phone if it means I get a headphone jack, bonus points if it’s easier to open the phone for repairs.
I used mine all the time because I hate using bluetooth even though I have expensive bluetooth headphones, I have now cancelled you out
I use mine. Bluetooth is great and all, but it’s still not the same quality as a hard-line. And they also run out of batteries.
Wanna know how many times I played a piano in the past 20 years?
Zero. Clearly they shouldn’t exist.
No, but maybe you should re-gift it to someone who does…
You’re not making sense.
Your position was that someone else is wrong to desire audio jacks, because you personally don’t need one after spaffing money on some Bluetooth earphones.
My point – which I thought was very obvious, but apparently you missed it – was that just because you don’t see the value of something doesn’t mean others don’t or that it shouldn’t exist.
I don’t have a piano, and I don’t know why you think I do.
My entire metaphor is that I don’t play or have a piano, but I recognise that it’s stupid for me to discourage others from having them solely because I personally don’t have or want one.
I’m a bit confused by your metaphor then (and thanks for the constructive insults, brings me back to the old reddit days…), since why take issue with something you dont own or use in the first place? Is the piano the headjack, or is it the bluetooth?
I didn’t insult you, I remarked that you didn’t appear to have understood my comment, and by the looks of it you still don’t.
Apologies if you’re upset by my comment.
I’m not the one taking issue with something I don’t own. That’s my entire point. You are discouraging someone from wanting something just because you personally don’t value it.
The piano is the headphone jack.
You don’t need a headphone jack, and feel the need to disparage others who do. “I don’t use a headphone jack, so you shouldn’t want a phone with one.”
Similarly, I don’t need a piano. However, I don’t go around telling people they shouldn’t want/play one, because I recognise that the things I want in my life are different to the things other people want in theirs.
It’s more like a new keyboard comes out and people all complain that it’s not a piano.
Good for you.
I use my backup headphones when my Bluetooth headset has run out of battery
How else would they push their mediocre reviewed Bluetooth headsets and ear buds?
Ah, that’s a dealbreaker for me
